Jeans and blazers

When British indie filmmaker Peter Strickland started working a new script back in 2015, he was feeling nostalgic. He’d recently written and directed 2014’s critically acclaimed S&M fantasia The Duke of Burgundy, and he wanted to focus his next movie on a department store, but through his childhood point of view. advertisement advertisement “Department stores were, in themselves, such a great setting. I love the artifice of them,” Strickland says. “I tried to use a child’s perspective where, as a kid, you don’t know what a lot of things do. You don’t know where a dumbwaiter leads.” But this was no rosy trip down memory lane. Strickland’s recollections of sprawling shops fed into a story of bleeding mannequins, sinister salesclerk witches, and a murderous red dress—the surrealist horror nightmare that is In Fabric. “It’s a very prosaic world,” Strickland says. “But within … [Read more...] about How a bonkers horror indie about a murderous red dress became a clever satire of consumerism

At Samovar, a tea bar on Valencia Street in San Francisco, white ceramic mugs line white walls, and the seating is one long bench, also white. Behind the counter, attractive men sport bespoke canvas aprons while tending to elegant glass contraptions that look like tall, thin French presses. Heaps of scones and croissants sit under glass domes in front of the tablet registers. It has the reverential air of many neighboring third-wave cafes in the Mission: Four Barrel, Ritual, Sightglass. advertisement advertisement People often come into Samovar looking for a cup of pour over coffee (although none is available–only tea). That it’s frequently mistaken for a place that sells a particular grade of coffee is no accident. Jesse Jacobs, who has a tiny tea empire that spans three locations throughout San Francisco, calls his six month old Valencia Street spot the “Blue Bottle of tea.” “Coffee has become cool,” says Jacobs, at a quick clip for … [Read more...] about Giving Tea The Blue Bottle Treatment

Who doesn’t love “best of” end-of-year lists? The most recent site to announce their best-of’s for 2017 is Reddit, which has given us not one but three lists. You can check out the top five in each category below and click on Reddit’s 2017 roundup to see all the entries. Most Upvoted Posts of 2017 “The Senate. Upvote this so that people see it when they Google ‘The Senate.'” “Private Internet Access, a VPN provider, takes out a full page ad in The New York Times calling out 50 senators.” “Gas station worker takes precautionary measures after customer refused to put out his cigarette.” “This is Shelia Fredrick, a flight attendant. She noticed a terrified girl accompanied by an older man. She left a note in the bathroom on which the victim wrote that she needed help. The police was alerted & the girl was saved from a human trafficker. We should honor our heroes.” “My dad waits … [Read more...] about These are Reddit’s most upvoted posts and top AMAs of 2017

Technology designed for women exploded in 2016, with new products hitting the market ranging from wearable trackers for expectant mothers to networking apps to help female professionals get ahead. “The online consumer market of women is a new phenomenon” in part because investors are waking up to the opportunity, says Anu Duggal, founding partner of the Female Founders Fund, a firm that invests in women-led startups. “The purchasing power of women is massive and becoming clearer.” advertisement advertisement Many of the female founders that made our list struggled for years to raise capital, but were able to convince investors in their vision through persistence and creativity (and of course, a solid business pitch). Miki Agrawal from Thinx, a period underwear maker, tells us she requested that one of her male investors wear a maxi pad during an entire meeting to get him to empathize with what women experience. Others like Morena Simatic, cofounder of … [Read more...] about The Top 10 Innovations That Made Women’s Lives Better In 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeaehxEdpgo The undisputed king of being digitally edited into singing a song is noted Peter Pan patriarch Brian Williams. The veteran news anchor’s “raps” are a recurring feature on Fallon. However, a new challenger just burst on the scene in the form of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise, who packs some serious Christmas heat in a song-approximating supercut. Watch your back, Williams! YouTuber SuperChief84 put together a short video in which the Star Trek character made famous by Patrick Stewart “sings” the seasonal classic “Let It Snow”–with a Captain Picard-y twist (the 2013 video has recently resurfaced). While most of the vocal snippets used to force Picard to sing the song are just words taken out of contest, the three words of his most memorable catchphrase stay intact, so that the chorus is now “Make It So.” The video’s creator even slips in another of … [Read more...] about Captain Picard Singing “Make It So” To The Tune Of “Let It Snow” Is The Reason For The Season